Tom Landry

Thomas Wade "Tom" Landry (September 11, 1924 – February 12, 2000) was an American football player and coach. He is ranked as one of the greatest and most innovative coaches in National Football League (NFL) history, creating many new formations and methods. He invented the now popular 4-3 defense, and the "flex defense" system made famous by the "Doomsday Defense" squads he created during his 29 year tenure with the Dallas Cowboys.

Landry won two Super Bowl titles (VI, XII), 5 NFC titles, 13 Divisional titles, and compiled a 270-178-6 record, the 3rd most wins of all time for an NFL coach. His 20 career playoff victories are the most of any coach in NFL history. He was named the NFL Coach of the Year in 1966 and the NFC Coach of the Year in 1975. His most impressive professional accomplishment is his 20 consecutive winning seasons (1966–1985), an NFL record that remains unbroken and unchallenged. It remains one of the longest winning streaks in all of professional sports history.

Personal life

Born in Mission, Texas, to Ray (an auto mechanic and volunteer fireman) and Ruth Landry, Tom was the second of four children (Robert, Tommy, Ruthie and Jack).^[1] After playing quarterback (primary passer and runner, and also punter) for Mission High School (including leading his team to a 12-0 record his senior season),^[1] he attended the University of Texas in Austin as an industrial engineering major.

He interrupted his education after a semester to serve in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. Landry earned his wings and a commission as a Second Lieutenant at Lubbock Army Air Field, and was assigned to the 493d Bombardment Group at RAF Debach, England, as a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber co-pilot in the 860th Bombardment Squadron. From November 1944 to April 1945, he completed a combat tour of 30 missions, and survived a crash landing in Belgium after his bomber ran out of fuel.^[2]

He returned to his studies at UT in the fall of 1946.^[2] On the football team, he played fullback and defensive back on the Texas Longhorns' bowl game winners on New Year's Day of 1948 and 1949. At UT, he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Omega Chi chapter). He received his bachelor's degree from UT in 1949. In 1952, he earned a Master's degree in Industrial engineering from the University of Houston.^[3]

Landry was known as a quiet, religious man, unfazed by the hype that surrounded the Cowboys, then being billed as America's Team. A Methodist Sunday school teacher, he would sometimes arrive for home games only moments before a noon kickoff after teaching an adult Bible study class in the morning. He was in a comic book promoting Christianity in 1973. Landry was active in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Landry was a friend of the Reverend Billy Graham, speaking at many of his crusades. In fact, one of the suit coats Landry commonly wore was a gift from Graham.

Landry married the former Alicia Wiggs on January 28, 1949. The Landrys were married for 51 years, prior to his death and had three children; a son, Tom, Jr. and daughters Kitty and Lisa (d. 1995).^[4]

Career

NFL player

Landry played in the AAFC in 1949 for the New York Yankees, then moved in 1950 across town to the New York Giants. In 1954 he was selected as an all-pro. He played through the 1955 season, and acted as a player-assistant coach the last two years, 1954 through 1955. Landry ended his playing career with 32 interceptions in only 80 games.

NFL coach

For the 1954 football season, Landry became the defensive coordinator for the Giants, opposite Vince Lombardi, who was the offensive coordinator. Landry led one of the best defensive teams in the league from 1956 to 1959. The two coaches created a fanatical loyalty within the unit they coached that drove the Giants to three appearances in the NFL championship game in four years. The Giants beat the Chicago Bears 47–7 in 1956, but lost to the Baltimore Colts in 1958 and 1959.

In 1960, he became the first head coach of the Dallas Cowboys and stayed for 29 seasons (1960–88). The Cowboys started with difficulties, recording an 0–11–1 record during their first season, with five or fewer wins in each of their next four. Despite this early futility, in 1964 Landry was given a ten year extension by owner Clint Murchison Jr. It would prove to be a wise move as Landry's hard work and determination paid off, and the Cowboys improved to a 7–7 record in 1965. In 1966, they surprised the NFL by posting 10 wins, and making it all the way to the NFL championship game. Dallas lost the game to Lombardi's Green Bay Packers, but this season was but a modest display of what lay ahead.

Throughout his tenure, Landry worked closely with the Cowboys general manager, Tex Schramm. The two were together during Landry's entire tenure with the team. A third member of the Cowboys brain trust in this time was Gil Brandt.

The Great Innovator

Tom Landry invented the now-popular "4-3 Defense", while serving as Giants defensive coordinator.^[5] It was called "4-3" because it featured four down lineman (two ends and two defensive tackles on either side of the offensive center) and three linebackers — middle, left, and right. The innovation was the middle linebacker. Previously, a lineman was placed over the center. But Landry had this person stand up and move back two yards. The Giants' middle linebacker was the legendary Sam Huff.

Landry also invented and popularized the use of keys (analyzing offensive tendencies) to determine what the offense might do.

When Landry was hired by the Dallas Cowboys, he became concerned with then-Green Bay Packers Coach Vince Lombardi's "Run to Daylight" idea, where the running back went to an open space, rather than a specific assigned hole. Landry reasoned that the best counter was a defense that flowed to daylight and blotted it out.

To do this, he refined the 4-3 defense by moving two of the four linemen off the line of scrimmage one yard and varied which linemen did this based on where the Cowboys thought the offense might run. This change was called "The Flex Defense," because it altered its alignment to counter what the offense might do. Thus, there were three such Flex Defenses — strong, weak, and "tackle" — where both defensive tackles were off the line of scrimmage. The idea with the flexed linemen was to improve pursuit angles to stop the Green Bay Sweep — a popular play of the 1960s. The Flex Defense was also innovative in that it was a kind of zone defense against the run. Each defender was responsible for a given gap area, and was told to stay in that area before they knew where the play was going.

It has been said that, after inventing the Flex Defense, he then invented an offense to score on it, reviving the man-in-motion and starting in the mid-1970s, the shotgun formation. But Landry's biggest contribution in this area was the use of "pre-shifting" where the offense would shift from one formation to the other before the snap of the ball. This tactic was not new. It was developed by Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg around the turn of the 20th century; Landry was the first coach to use the approach on a regular basis. The idea was to break the keys within the defense used to determine what the offense might do. An unusual feature of this offense was Landry having his offensive linemen get in their squatted pre-stance, stand up while the running backs shifted, and then go back down into their complete "hand down" stance. The purpose of the "up and down" movement was to make it more difficult for the defense to see where the backs were shifting (over the tall offensive linemen) and thus cut down on recognition time. While other NFL teams later employed shifting, few employed this "up and down" technique as much as Landry.

Landry also was ahead of his time in his philosophy of building a team. When the Packers were a dynasty in the 1960s with 245 lb (111 kg) guards and 250 lb (110 kg) tackles, he was busy stockpiling size for the next generation of linemen. Tackles Rayfield Wright stood 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) and Ralph Neely weighed 265 lb (120 kg). Center Dave Manders weighed 250 lb (110 kg). All went on to block in Pro Bowls and Super Bowls in the 1970s.

The same with defense. The better linemen of the 1960s were the shorter, stockier, leverage players like Willie Davis, Alex Karras and Andy Robustelli. But Landry drafted the taller, leaner linemen like 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m) George Andrie and 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) Jethro Pugh in the 1960s and later 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m) Ed Jones in the 1970s. Long arms allow for increased leverage in the pass rush. A quarter of a century later, all NFL teams covet pass rushers who resemble thickly muscled National Basketball Association (NBA) power forwards.

In the days before strength and speed programs, Landry brought in Alvin Roy and Boots Garland in the early 1970s to help make the Cowboys stronger and faster. Roy was a weightlifter and Garland a college track coach. Now every NFL team has specialty coaches.

Landry also was one of the first NFL coaches to search outside the traditional college football pipeline for talent. For example, he recruited several soccer players from Latin America, such as Efren Herrera and Raphael Septien, to compete for the job of placekicker for the Cowboys. Landry looked to the world of track and field for speedy skill position players. For example, Bob Hayes, once considered the fastest man in the world, was drafted by and played wide receiver for the Cowboys under Landry.^[7]

Landry also was the first to employ a coach for quality control. Ermal Allen would analyze game films and chart the tendencies of the opposition for the Cowboys in the 1970s. That gave Landry an edge in preparation, because he knew what to expect from his opponent based on down and distance. Now every NFL team has a quality control coach, and most have two.

Landry produced a very large coaching tree. In 1986, five NFL head coaches were former Landry assistants: Mike Ditka, Dan Reeves, John Mackovic, Gene Stallings, and Raymond Berry.

Retirement and legacy

In the 1980s, the Cowboys won two Division Championships, made five playoff appearances which included reaching the NFC Championship Game three consecutive years (1980–1982) but failed to reach the Super Bowl. In 1984, H.R. "Bum" Bright purchased the Dallas Cowboys from Clint Murchison, Jr. As the Cowboys suffered through progressively poorer seasons (from 10–6 in 1985 to 7–9 in 1986, 7–8 in 1987, and 3–13 in 1988), Bright became disenchanted with the team.

Landry had signed a three-year contract in the summer of 1987. However Schramm brought in Paul Hackett as the new offensive coach in 1986, and in 1987 he hired offensive line coach Jim Erkenbeck and special teams coach Mike Solari. Some suggested that Schramm's moves divided the coaching staff, a plan to first undermine and then dismiss Landry. Bright who usually stayed behind the scenes from the time he purchased the Cowboys in March 1984, publicly criticized Landry after an embarrassing home loss to the Atlanta Falcons in 1987, saying that he was "horrified" at the play-calling and complaining "It doesn't seem like we've got anybody in charge who knows what he's doing, other than Tex". Bright was also upset at how top draft pick, defensive tackle Danny Noonan and and running back Herschel Walker weren't being used enough. Two weeks later, one day after the Cowboys' 27-17 loss to the Detroit Lions, a team that had come into the game tied with Kansas City, the Giants and the Rams for the worst record in the NFL, president and general manager Tex Schramm said on his radio show "There's an old saying, "If the teacher doesn't teach, the student doesn't learn". Nonetheless, Bright maintained his hands-off approach on the team while Schramm retained his confidence in Landry.^[8][9] Landry's game strategies and single-mindedness in the past few seasons left him open to public criticism.^[10]

Landry's Cowboys finished the 1988 season going 3-13 which earned the No. 1 pick in the draft with the worst record in the NFL, taking his personal record to 270-178-6. It was the fourth time in five years that they missed the playoffs, as well as their third consecutive losing season. Nonetheless in February 1989, before the start of the 1989 season, Landry remained determined to coach into the 1990s "unless I get fired", as he dismissed or reassigned his assistants. Landry had one year left on his contract which paid $1 million a season.^[11][12]

Two weeks later on February 26, 1989, Landry was dismissed as head coach, shortly after H.R. "Bum" Bright sold the team to Jerry Jones. Bright had suffered major losses in his banking, real estate and oil businesses in the last three years; during the Savings and Loan crisis, Bright's Cowboys and Savings and Loan were taken over by the FSLIC who later forced the team's sale to Jones. During a more solid economic climate, it was said that Bright could have held on and Landry may have remained as coach. Jones hired Jimmy Johnson, his former teammate at the University of Arkansas who had been serving as coach of University of Miami football team. Schramm was in tears at the press conference which announced the coaching change, and he was forced out as general manager shortly afterwards; Schramm and Landry had been together for 29 years since the Cowboys' inception in 1960. When Landry met with his players two days later to tell them how much he would miss them, he began to cry, and the players responded with a standing ovation.^[13][14]

Landry received an outpouring of public support after his firing as the city of Dallas and fans everywhere forgot about the team’s decline during the 1980s and instead remembered the memories of the legend in the fedora who built America’s Team from nothing to champions. Jones stated that he did not give consideration to retaining Landry for even a season, as he said that he would not have purchased the team unless he could hire Johnson as coach. Jones also did not discuss the matter beforehand with Landry before announcing the decision. Landry's unceremonious dismissal by Jones was denounced by football fans and media as totally lacking in class and respect, as pride and tradition were part of the Cowboys where great performance and loyal service were expected to be rewarded. In the years since, while most fans retain their support for the team, there persists significant levels of resentment towards Jones over the mistreatment of Landry.^[15][16]

Landry's success during nearly three decades of coaching was the impetus for his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1990, less than two years after his last game. Landry was inducted into the "Ring of Honor" at Texas Stadium in 1993. Landry had declined several earlier offers by Jones to enter the Ring of Honor before accepting in 1993.

Landry died on February 12, 2000, after battling leukemia. Landry's funeral service was held at Highland Park United Methodist Church, where he was an active and committed member for forty-three years. He was interred in the Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery in Dallas. A cenotaph dedicated to Landry, complete with a depiction of his fedora, was placed in the official Texas State Cemetery in Austin at the family's request.^[17]

The Cowboys wore a patch on their uniforms during the 2000 season depicting Landry's trademark fedora. A bronze statue of Landry stood outside of Texas Stadium, and now stands in front of Cowboys Stadium since the Cowboys relocated in 2009. The section of Interstate 30 between Dallas and Fort Worth was named the Tom Landry Highway by the Texas Legislature in 2001. The football stadium in Landry's hometown of Mission, Texas was named Tom Landry Stadium to honor one of the city's most famous former residents.^[18] Similarly, Trinity Christian Academy's stadium in Addison, Texas is named Tom Landry Stadium in honor of Landry's extensive involvement and support of the school.^[19][20]

In popular culture

• In 1959, while defensive coach of the Giants, Landry pretended to be a Catholic missionary priest on the TV panel game To Tell The Truth (on an episode that included balloonist Commander Malcolm Roth).

• The coach in Peter Gent's novel North Dallas Forty is based on Tom Landry. G.D. Spradlin played the role in the film of the same name.

• In Fox's animated sitcom King of the Hill, the local middle school is named after Tom Landry, and Landry is a personal hero of the show's main character Hank Hill. He mentions being "mortified" because he went to work on the date of Landry's death after his cousin Dusty (guest star Dusty Hill of ZZ Top) had previously tricked him into thinking Tom Landry had died, and he thought it was a repeat of that prank. Hank also has a Tom Landry Ceramic plate that he sometimes consults in times of need, on one occasion saying "Where did I go wrong, Tom?" Landry also occasionally appears to Hank in dream sequences to counsel him in times of need, like during Hank's varnish induced hallucination on the episode "Hillennium".

• In an episode of The Simpsons ("You Only Move Twice"), Homer Simpson buys Tom Landry's trademark fedora in an effort to improve his leadership qualities, and is shown in several later episodes wearing the hat. Landry was also featured in Season 7 episode ("Marge Be Not Proud") as one of the Christmas carolers introduced by Krusty the Clown early in the episode.

• The series Friday Night Lights features a character named Landry hinted to be named after Tom Landry, given the town's obsession with football.

• In a Campbell's Chunky Soup commercial, the game takes place in mythical Reginald H. White Memorial Park, on the corner of Landry Road and Halas Drive.^[21]

• The fantasy football board game Blood Bowl features a necromantic team coach called Tomolandry the Undying.

• University of Oklahoma quarterback Landry Jones is named in honor of Coach Landry.

Quotations

• "When you want to win a game, you have to teach. When you lose a game, you have to learn."
• "Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you're in control, they're in control."
• "Leadership is the ability to get a person to do what he doesn't want to do in order to achieve what he wants to achieve...it's getting the best out of people."

References

Bibliography

• Cavanaugh, Jack (2008), Giants Among Men. New York:Random House. eISBN ISBN 978-1-58836-697-9

Further reading

• Summerall, Pat and Levin, Michael (2010), Giants:What I learned about life from Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry, Hoboken, NJ:John Wiley and Sons, Inc., (eISBN 978-0-470-90908-9)

External links

• Profile at Pro Football Hall of Fame
• Archive at The Sporting News
• Gravesite